Part of one of mine is Bardiglio marble. It won't get an uncleanable stain from tomatoes but it'll etch. Not all that much of a concern with the blobby pattern and honed finish. If etching doesn't bother you, many of the marbles hold up to stains pretty well.

Get some samples of everything you kinda like and cook and chop and pour on them before you tear out your old kitchen!

@fori: thanks for the input most of the fabricators where i am push for granite over marble in terms of durability. I like the look of marble but don't want to have a dingy countertop after a year of use.

I have super white quartzite, it will etch if acids are left on a long time, but after almost 1.5 years only have one little etch mark by the sink. If you wipe of when a spill happens no problems... Also, honed is much more forgiving - mine is polished From Kitchen before and afterFrom Kitchen before and after

This delicatus granite has a lot of variety in terms of more black and sometimes less black... i know the "glass" chunks in the granite don't translate well in pictures but when i saw it in person i was very impressed.

thanks all for the positive comments on my counter. as some of you know, this is counter #2 due to fabrication issues so this was a long fought battle to get to this point!

i can't take credit for the calaCATta - was done originally by az stone - i just shamelessly appropriated :)

re: questions about my marble: it is calacatta marble. i was told where i bought it that the color is not typical of a calacatta as it is very warm with a lot of coffee colored swirls and not as much grey as it would typically have. i loved the coffee swirls even though some could consider the non-typical nature as a negative. i fawn over it every day. i have not yet moved back into the kitchen (still microwaving on a folding table in the livingroom) so i cannot yet speak to durability.

regarding selecting marble for a kitchen: i really tried not to like marble (was my favorite from the outset) given the issues raised on this site and elsewhere but after doing an exhaustive assessment of the alternatives and testing marble at home i came back to marble. i am the jeans/wrinkled linen who uses antiques in day to day living type of person who is a good fit for marble. also note i am a single professional so putting marble in my kitchen is perhaps an easier choice than if it was for a large family with a bunch of kids. i also considered the white quartzites but they were too grey for me and given they too were susceptible to etching, i decided why not get marble then!

Oh I love this thread. I love it all, from corian to happening marble to stainless steel. I am so hopelessly TKO now. How did this happen? Ridiculous.... Is this a permanent change or will I ever get a life back?

I've found it very challenging to adequately photograph my countertop. Please forgive me for posting a zillion pictures, but I'm trying to get some reasonable pictures and it's just not easy to capture the colors and movement. I'm happy to delete redundancies or failures, just let me know...

Hey, Lauren - I keep waiting for you to tell us what you were looking for. Whatever you had in mind, it resulted in a really cool compilation of lots of different kinds of counter tops. Did you just want to see what different things looked like in place, or was it the counter arrangement itself? Something else?

I want to see that amazing recycled-glass stuff. Is it called Terazzo? Something like that. And definitely what I would have gotten with infinite pockets ... actually, dunno, maybe not at that. Still, I really would love to see it if anyone's got it. (It's probably "laminate", though not in the sense its often used here).

Joaniepoanie - If you look in the lower edge & lower right edge of the photos, you'll see glimpses of the flooring. It is bland, pale, neutral ceramic. Oddly, up close, the tones show peach & grey, but next to the cabinetry, it reads beige or ivory. I used white grout instead of beige to tie in with the white baseboard. Color is arbitrary.
Aliris19 - your rain forest is drool-worthy! It's easy to see from your photos that you really enjoy it! Gorgeous!

Kitschy -- I think of that as an island but technically it's a peninsula. On one end is a wall that goes to the ceiling so I guess that makes it an island, but you can walk right around the thing like an island ... it's an islula.

If you click on the photos I bet you'll get over to my photobucket and you can see the layout of the kitchen better. It's suppose to be the shape of a piano.

I *wish* I had not put stupid ogee edges on my islula. Still not a day goes by I don't rue that decision. Just tossing the whine out here for anyone contemplating form/function. Many, many claim the function is not impaired for them by the swirly edge, but this is not my experience; and I hadn't really contemplated taking any functional hit at all, so that's mostly what I want to do by whining -- raise consciousness to this as an issue to contemplate in advance.

Someone asked for laminate, so I'll give you laminate. This is Wilsonart Mystique Night (I think) with a beveled edge. If it looks a little old-fashioned, it's because I did it years ago. The cabinets, floor, appliances, etc. came with the house, but I had to change the hideous countertop. Even my dad, who never notices anything like that, commented on how ugly it was. Wish I had a before picture.

Those counter tops are not marble, they are serpentinite. Much different than marble, they do not etch or stain and are very durable. We wanted soapstone, but we couldn't find any here that we liked. The back splash is from Pratt and Larson, out of Portland, in their water color collection. They are 3x6 subways and bring out all the green in the counter tops. I love it.

We were out all day Saturday, from 10:30 AM to 10:30 PM. I had separation anxiety from my rainforest counters. There is so much to see and such subtle color. This winter, when everything is dull and gloomy, my kitchen will have trees and rivers and rocks and little colored things.
Laura

We love it because it uses recycled glass and mirror. There's lots to look at close up, but in context, it just looks clean and bright. I have abused our little sample mercilessly and it's cleaned up every time--even with turmeric!

Someone was asking about vetrazzo. I know someone on GW installed it, but I can't remember who. It's beautiful, and it's what we originally wanted. We ended up with the quartz choice for the easy maintenance, but here's some cool pictures of vetrazzo.

And -- funny, true story -- as I was perusing it just now I was running through in my head how I could post to it ... then I came across my own post. I honestly have zero memory of having seen this before. And yet ... I think it's my "favorite"? What does this mean? Easy to please I guess.

Oh my, and this goes on ... I saw kitschy's question and decided to respond to it, making several points all of which, I realized after having written it I already made above. My goodness. This does not bode well in the memory department.

aliris-fear not-it just gets worse ;-) (wait until you start giving your friends the most perfect gift for them-that you have already given them)

I was going to respond to your post above (from Nov.) anyway-love your counters, and I ALWAYS feel self-indulgent when I post ANY picture of my kitchen. But what better place to stoke that inner TKO . . .

60 - yup, we have the same, but yours is from a "greener" (and softer) part of the mountain (it's in India, in Rajasthan I believe). The difference in color between my pictures is a function of the photography not the stone. It's all pretty much that darker shade. I believe I've seen yours in the stone yards and it is quite a bit lighter in color, and also with fewer wild tangents, if you will...which from a fabrication standpoint is a good thing. It's hard to cut the stone with those big changes in quality that happen in the veins.

I've never seen mine here (or anywhere on the internet) so I'll add it to the mix. It is leathered kodiak brown. It is similar to antique brown or marron cohiba, but it comes from Quebec and has a smaller, more uniform grain to it. From it distance it reads solid black, but up close you can see some interesting texture.

Love love love this topic. Your kitchens are amazing. Looking for pics of stainless; particularly of stainless with white cabinets and beadboard backsplash... Have you ever seen this combo? Any ideas would be awesome.
Again truly amazing kitchens!!